Listening to Speakers as People

• In Event: 32.082 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 32.082-6 - Listening, Hesitation, Space: Reconstructing Educational Relations

Abstract

Listening has recently been studied in philosophy and education. Analyses have focused on listeners’ reception of speakers’ utterances - and on efforts to understand and evaluate them. Listening to the speaker as a person has not been closely studied. Drawing on phenomenological and conceptual methods, the paper addresses the questions: what is it to listen to another person? The paper critiques three accounts - listening to the other as a ‘whole person’ (humanistic psychology), listening as aligning with another for conjoint action (Dewey), and listening as making a space (a void) for the unfathomable Other (Levinas) . A synthesis is offered with direct implications for the ethical relationship of teachers and students in teacher listening.

Author

• Leonard J. Waks, Temple University